Remember Benghazi Day? Of course you do, it was only a day ago. A long, long, 11-hour day of Republicans making it Baccarat crystal clear that the whole point of the seventh congressional investigation into how Hillary Clinton did Benghazi was a giant waste of taxpayer dollars and a REALLY OBVIOUS attempt to stop Clinton from becoming the next president.

[contextly_sidebar id="KeaJEdD6BW9vvtQEFge7HcyO5JVvyt7U"]

---

One more thing made clear? They failed. All aboard the epic fail boat FAILED. And somewhere around the tenth hour of Clinton's testimony, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings said what we're all thinking about how DIS-gusting this whole shit show is.

You'll recall that Cummings enlightened us earlier this week about the most recent despicable tactic by Republican committee chairman Trey Gowdy to accuse Clinton of doing bad, evil, un-American things, when she'd done nothing of the sort. Gowdy accused Clinton of using her personal email to forward classified information, effectively outing a CIA spy, thereby jeopardizing national security and American lives. Except the CIA said that wasn't true, and it turned out that Gowdy himself had "redacted" the information in his smoking gun email to make it look as if Clinton had done a bad, when she had not.

[contextly_sidebar id="OrXXFuDT3ajbImOyMJn5MEaBPBqVjRye"]

So yeah. Cummings was already pretty up to the top of his beautiful bald head and then some with Gowdy and the whole panel. And by the tenth hour of asking Clinton over and over again why she didn't even care that FOUR AMERICANS DIED in Benghazi on her watch -- even though, duh, obviously she did and said so repeatedly -- Cummings was ready to preach some truth:

I realize that you've gone through a lot, but the fact still remains -- and it bothers me when I hear people even imply that you didn't care about your people. That's not right.

And then I sit here and I watch you. And I saw how you kind of struggled when you were talking about that night. And I just for one want to thank you, and I appreciate what you've done. It has not been easy. You're right, it's easy to sit up here under these lights, and Monday morning quarterbacking about what could have been, what should have been.

You have laid it out. I think -- you've said -- this has not been done perfectly. You wish you could do it another way, and then the statement you made a few minutes ago when you said, you know, I have given more thought to this than all of you combined.

So I don't know what we want from you. Do we want to badger you over and over again until you get tired, until we do get the gotcha moment he's talking about?

We're better than that. We are so much better. We are a better country. And we are better than using taxpayer dollars to try to destroy a campaign. That's not what America is all about.

So you can comment if you like; I just had to get that off my chest.

And that is when the room (and probably all the Americans watching at home) burst into applause. And that right there, kids, is just the latest example of why Rep. Cummings is one of our favorite Legislative Badasses in Congress.

[contextly_sidebar id="UoXcfpW9pt9Zn7XjHXxtsGc4sj5t0HPT"]

The investigation into Benghazi has now lasted longer than any other congressional investigation in history. It has cost $5 million, the panel has interviewed 54 witnesses, and Clinton herself testified for 11 GODDAMNED HOURS. And it was pretty clear she would have continued to do so, but heck if those sweaty frustrated Republicans on the panel weren't getting sleepy after all those hours of nothin'.

It would be irresponsible not to point out that after the 9/11 that happened on George W. Bush's watch -- you know, the one that either didn't happen at all, or was actually Bill Clinton's fault, according to Republican legend -- George Bush testified for all of one hour, with a long list of demands and restrictions and his big daddy Dick Cheney by his side, to make sure Dubya didn't fuck it up. One hour. Three thousand dead Americans.

Rep. Cummings said we are better than this. But are we, really? It's up to Republicans to decide. Only they can end this blatantly partisan exploitation of dead Americans just to try to STOP HILLARY, as they damn well should, and prove Cummings right.

[Video via TPM]